


keep a close watch on me

by bramblecircuit



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Archivist Sasha James, Big Switch Energy for the both of them, Cuddling, Enthusiastic Consent, Fluff and Smut, Mind Meld, Office Sex, One Shot, Other, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Synesthesia, Trans Martin Blackwood, Vaginal Fingering, also......we should talk, arousal sharing, beholding kink, confession scene, elias doesn't exist in this universe, gratuitous depictions of touch, haha get WRECKED elias!!!, i mean TECHNICALLY but everyone's gone home so they're alone, if archivist!sasha sitting on her desk does anything for you, then this is the fic for you, touch starvation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:54:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23507206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bramblecircuit/pseuds/bramblecircuit
Summary: “Are you familiar with empathy, Martin?”“The thing that tells you how other people feel?”“Exactly.” Sasha crossed her legs, swung her ankle back and forth. “I can do it now. On command. It’s not perfect, but…” She trailed off, head turned away. “I tried it this morning. I didn’t control it well, and I…I felt something. From you.”
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Sasha James
Comments: 13
Kudos: 44





	keep a close watch on me

Her colors were purple and red.

She was fussy about breaks and forgiving in performance reviews. She joked with Tim about ghosts and could hack the pants off any bastion of knowledge. 

She wore these skirts that flowed like water, and they always made Martin feel like he’d been caught in a downpour. Her memory was immaculate. She propped her feet on her desk after hours.

She said hello to Martin every day, specifically. 

She whispered to him after a meeting that morning that he should work late tonight, if he was able. Of course he was able. She squeezed his arm, and Martin spent the rest of that day trying not to think about her lipstick smeared on his cheek. 

Martin followed up on emails. He made a few phone calls.

He thought about Sasha climbing onto his lap and straddling him, her voice low and encouraging against his neck, violet-sky, velvet night, ruby-studded, crimson want. 

Martin leaned over his computer but saw only purple, orchid and lavender, boysenberry and bruised plum. 

Tim checked his watch and left, ruffling Martin’s hair as he went. 

Gertrude locked her door and handed a file to Sasha as she passed.

Jon clocked out, at long last, and zipped up his coat with noticeable reluctance. 

Martin sat in the quiet office, the sound of the clocks’ ticking and the buzz of the motion-sensor lights the only distraction from the pounding of his heartbeat.

He fixed his collar. He locked his door. 

He knocked, three times, below the nameplate. _Sasha James, Head Archivist_. 

“I’m so sorry to ask you to stay late.” Her voice was warm, smooth like silk, and Martin shivered when she said his name. “Close the door. I know we’re alone. I just feel better that way.”

Sasha sat on her desk, her face illuminated by the warm lamplight. Martin tried not to stare. Some days, he thought she must dress with the sole intent of dazzling him, and today was just the same. It was a black blazer this time, buttoned over a blue shirt with a pretty little collar. Her skirt, a hypnotic black, reached just past her knees, and it shimmered slightly as she crossed and uncrossed her legs, her heels kicking playfully at the wood. Her long hair was pulled back partially into a ponytail, but she pulled it free as he took a seat. Martin swallowed. He gripped his hands tightly and focused firmly on the bridge of her nose.

“Did you find those new assignments alright? Not too challenging, I hope.” 

“O-Oh! No, nothing troublesome at all. Tracked down those financial records you wanted.”

“Excellent,” she said, and her voice was velvety smooth. She let him sit in silence for a moment, a catlike smile on her face. 

“I learned something new about myself today,” she started, twirling a lock of hair around her finger. “Something new I can do.” 

Martin swallowed, mesmerized by the dip and swirl of her finger, the way her hand curled to allow it passage. 

“Are you familiar with empathy, Martin?”

“The thing that tells you how other people feel?”

“Exactly.” Sasha crossed her legs, swung her ankle back and forth. “I can do it now. On command. It’s not perfect, but…” She trailed off, head turned away. “I tried it this morning. I didn’t control it well, and I…I felt something. From you.”

Martin kept his eyes fixed on her knees as his heart thudded a terrible rhythm in his chest. 

“I pulled away before I could tell what it was, but it was strong. A powerful secret hidden away.” Martin looked up at her through his eyelashes and saw her wince. “I didn’t mean to. I promise you that. It was just…so _forbidden,_ so…delicious to the Eye. Which I have to call a part of me, now.” She sounded almost apologetic, and even as his vision swam with fear, Martin wanted to stand up and take her by the shoulders, to kiss her and kiss her until her hesitation melted away like the distance between them. 

“I don’t mind,” he said. “Really. I’ve…” He licked his lips. “Honestly, this is—it’s easier, now. You know that there’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you. All I have to do is say it.” He gave a small laugh. “Bite the bullet, spit it out.” He took a breath, let it shudder its way out of him.

“You’re mixing metaphors,” she said fondly.

“I’m—yes, I am, sorry. I’m in love with you,” he said, forcing his head up with a momentous effort. “Can’t remember how it started, but it hasn’t—I can’t imagine it ending.” Sasha’s eyes stayed trained on him. She would’ve looked perfectly composed except for the way she tapped her foot against the desk, all her energy forced into that gesture. 

“I didn’t know that,” she said, her voice reverent. “You told me something I didn’t know. And how much better the world seems because of it.” She spoke thoughtfully, as if Martin had waxed poetic about philosophy, and when she opened her mouth again, it was as if her perspective had transformed completely in those seconds of silence.

“See, I’m in love with you, and it’s—” She pressed her hand to her cheek and sighed. “It’s been torture, not being able to say a damn thing about it.”

Martin closed his eyes and felt the world he’d been living in fall to pieces. 

“Do I get to act like it?” He asked, eyes still shut. “Like I’m in love with you, I mean.”

“You think a lot, don’t you, Martin?” He blushed.

“I-I suppose.”

“You think a lot about us, together. Alone.” The word sat heavy on her tongue. “You don’t have to tell me,” she said, her voice snaking through the room like smoke. “But I’d like it very much if you did.” She trembled a little at the end, and it was that small weakness that emboldened him.

“I do think a lot. Too much,” he started. “I want to…oh, this is hard. I want to kiss you. So—So many ways. So many _places_.” Sasha let out a small whimper, and he looked up to see her eyes fixed on him, one hand gripping the desk like her life depended on it. 

“I want to…” Martin licked his lips. “Christ, I—I don’t know how to do this.”

“Will it help if I tell you what this does to me?” She pressed her legs together and squirmed, closing her eyes and sighing a deep, heavenly sigh. “How I feel it, like you’re an inch away but holding back?”

“I want to undress you,” he said, watching as she whimpered again and slid close to the edge of the desk.

“Tell me _how_.” She was holding back, he could tell—not using the compulsion, no matter how sweetly it called. It made him feel soft inside, and he made a promise to himself to give her everything she wanted.

“Slowly. I’d undo the buttons one by one.” She rocked her hips slowly, trying to find the sweet spot against the ridge of the desk, but of course she was just making it _worse_. “I’d take off your blazer and run my hands up your arms.”

“Martin—”

“I’d take off your shirt, too,” he said, standing up and taking one small step closer, as she watched, her breath catching. “I’d slide it off you so gently. Then I’d pull your straps down. I’d kiss your shoulders.”

“ _Do it,_ ” she moaned. “I’ve waited long enough.”

“But I could tell you so much more.” 

“G-Go on, then.”

“I’d kiss your chest.” Martin cleared his throat. “Right above your heart. I’d touch your side; I’d be careful, so careful. I wouldn’t miss a spot.” He took another step, then another, until he was close enough to touch her. He reached his hands out, pulled them back. Looked up at her, searching for something in her face that he found easily.

He put his hands on her hips, locking her in place.

“None of that, now,” he said softly. “I want you to listen. And don’t—” he added as she lifted one hand from the desk. “Didn’t say you could do that.” 

Surprise flashed over Sasha’s face before a smirk replaced it. She shifted slightly, as if this was the most comfortable seat in the world, and raised an eyebrow.

“You had something to tell me?” Her voice dipped in the middle, each word a little shaky, and Martin pressed his hands more firmly against her waist.

“I’d trail kisses down your stomach. I’d be so slow, you wouldn’t miss a detail. You’d feel everything,” he breathed against her neck. “Every time I pulled away, every breath I took.”

“I—”

“Shh. There’s more to this story.” He could hear her swallow, the heat radiating off her intoxicating. “I’d take your skirt off, and then I’d just look. I’d look at you, and you’d look at me. I’d step close, sure, but I wouldn’t make it easy. I’d touch your calves, go all the way down to your ankles.”

Martin listened to her breath shake, the almost imperceptible whimpers that snuck past her lips. 

“I’d stroke the inside of your thighs. I’d get so close.”

“You’d better keep a close watch on me, Martin,” she said, her body tense as a coiled spring. “I’m going to make you squirm, a-and—”

“I’m counting on it.” The heat between his thighs was beyond distraction now. When was the last time he’d felt anything like this? When had anything made him feel so undone?

“Tell me the rest of it,” she said, strained and lovely, and he was all too happy to oblige her.

“You’d have to tell me what to do next. I-I don’t know what you prefer. Would you want my fingers or my mouth? Do you like to be filled up? Do you want me to lick you clean?”

“You _want_ to touch me, Martin. I know you do. I—” 

“So badly I can’t think.” Martin ghosted a kiss on her neck. “You’ll be good? You’ll be good for me?”

“I’ll be me,” she said, turning her head to press her teeth ever-so-gently against his pulse point. “And I’ll be perfect.”

With trembling hands, Martin unbuttoned her blazer and helped it off her shoulders. Short sleeves. He swallowed and placed his hands right below the cuffs, tracing circles against the creamy soft skin. 

A slow shudder passed through her, like a stone dropped into a lake. Sasha tilted her head back, her hands fluttering, and Martin thought she looked magical, as if she were about to fly off, taking one last look at him before lifting from the earth.

He unbuttoned her collar first, moving down deliberately, careful not to touch her yet. Slowly, he uncovered her, setting the shirt loosely on her shoulders, a stripe of dark skin exposed. 

She said his name softly, like calling to a deer in the dark.

He touched her necklace and ran his finger down reverently to her skirt. He kissed her shoulders, ran his thumbs over the curves. Sasha let out a ragged breath, half sigh, half laughter, as he set the shirt aside and pulled the straps of her bra down her shoulders. 

“May I?” She winked at him.

“Don’t need an instruction manual, do you?”

“Benefit of falling for a trans guy,” he said, reaching around her to unhook the clasp in one familiar motion. “ _That_ will never faze me.”

“And other things do?” She arched her back as he cupped her breasts, rewarding Martin with a soft, almost wounded sound.

“You’ve always intimated me.”

“Doubtful.” 

“It’s true.” He traced his fingers around the soft swell of her chest and watched, enraptured, as she closed her eyes and sighed that lovely sigh again. “You’ve got to understand what it’s like,” Martin said, sliding his hand cautiously down to the waistband of her skirt. “It’s not like I can read your mind.”

A shockwave went through the room. He was himself, still, but also her, the two perspectives layered and clashing. He waded through the sensation, holding fast to the details: she was sensitive, almost too sensitive, each light touch of his fingers sparking like a flame to paper. Something lurked underneath it all, something prickly and uncomfortable, and Martin tensed his shoulders, trying to get rid of it.

“What _is_ that? That—That feeling behind everything.”

“What?”

“I can feel something. Are you uncomfortable? Is this wrong?” Sasha squeezed her eyes shut.

“I don’t feel anything out of the ordinary. Are you sure—oh. Oh, I think I know what you mean.” She bit her lip. “It’s just touch-starvation. It’s not unusual.”

“But it’s so _strong_.” Martin titled his head, trying to shake away the sensation. “Do you—do you feel like that all the time? At work, w-when you go home?”

“I guess I do,” she said, like it really wasn’t important. “I’ve gotten used to it.” 

Oh, _Sasha_. 

The phantom layer dissipated all at once, and put his hands deliberately on her shoulders, spreading his fingers to reach more of her.

“I can’t imagine feeling like that all the time.” Sasha shifted under the force of his gaze.

“It’s not a big deal, Martin.”

“Yes. Yes it _is_. I’m…I’m going to fix it.” She gave him a dry laugh. 

“No one’s ever been able to do that.”

“You don’t know me as well as you think you do, then.” He slid his hand firmly down her side, thumb trailing over her ribs. She gasped and pushed herself into it, Martin instinctively putting his other hand on her hip to steady her. “Good?”

“Just…like that. Firm, but not rough.” He did it again, both hands this time, and she whined, pulling her knees up and pressing her legs together. She was sensitive where her skin was softest, Martin learned. She had a weak spot just above her waist and pleaded to him when he circled it. She relaxed when he rubbed her back, closing her eyes and almost inviting him to look at her, to take in the whole picture before it changed again. 

“Do you want to know what I think about?” She asked as he wove his fingers through her hair. 

“Hm?”

“I can show you what I think about.” She look at him over her glasses, her lips quirked into a smile. “Hmm. The idea appeals to you. But you’re not sure,” she ended softly, pushing her hand through his curly hair. “Don’t you want to know? All the thoughts that cross my mind when I should be working, all the temptations I have to push away?”

Martin tilted his head up and closed his eyes.

“I thought so.” Her voice was deep purple, nightshade blooming, blackberry bitten, tart and dripping down his chin. She took her hand out of his hair, pulling with it a soft sound from Martin’s lips.

“I’ll need your hand for this, love.”

Trembling, his eyes still closed, Martin reached out his hand until it met her fingertips.

It was sudden: a barrage of physical sensation and fragments of thought, a coursing warmth underneath it all that made him gasp. He saw himself pinning her to the wall. Himself on his knees, awaiting instructions. He felt, as if in a dream, his own fingers rubbing circles between his legs, and realized with a start that it was a memory. Sasha thought about him, wished for him. Categorized the ways she wanted him to dismantle her like metal into scrap.

Martin sunk down as if in worship, his hand resting on her knee. He pushed his head forward, kissed the soft skin on the inside of her thigh.

“Martin. Martin—”

“Hm? Oh, t-too much?” Sasha bit down on her knuckles.

“A little, yeah.”

“That’s OK, we can—stop for a bit?” With the moment interrupted, Martin suddenly felt shy. He cast his eyes on her shirt, which hung haphazardly off the corner of the desk. “D’you want—oh, guess that works too,” he said as she slipped into the blazer and buttoned it. “That’s a good look on you.”

“I should go to all my meetings like this.” She let her eyes roam over his face, turning and laughing into her hand. “And _you_ should go to all your meetings like _that_.”

“Like what?”

“Take a look at your _hair,_ Martin.” She giggled again, reaching behind her for her phone. “Let me take a picture.”

“What? No!” Martin shielded his face. “Can’t look that bad, and even if it does, that’s your fault!”

“You look like…do you know those birds with the really fluffy heads?”

“No idea what you’re going on about,” Martin said, his arms crossed and his face in a pout. 

Sasha leaned forward, her hands gripping the edge of the desk. 

“Maybe I can show you.” She met his eyes. “May I try?”

“Sure.” Martin swallowed. “How does this work, again?”

“No idea, just going to…” She squeezed her eyes shut and cast her mind out, inch by inch. She pushed away the drive to seek out pain, to roam hungry and free out of the institute and onto the streets. None of that mattered now. 

Slowly, she pushed her consciousness out further, gasping when she came into contact with Martin. Sweet, complex, beautiful Martin. Brain firing in a thousand different directions, the need to comfort hardwired into every path. Oh, the anger there. The longing, the acceptance of it. 

“Hold on, think I got it—were you talking about a parakeet?”

“Yes!” She clapped her hands. “I was thinking of—”

“The yellow one? All those feathers on the top?”

“You can see it!” She giggled again, her fist pressed into her mouth, and a fresh burst of warmth washed over him. “I’ll ‘head’ out now,” she joked, laughing at her own pun. “I’ll try not to peek.” Martin closed his eyes as the pressure of her mind started to leave his.

“Oops,” she said, voice scarlet and coiled, a snake ready to strike. “I slipped.”

Martin sank to his knees, his lips parting in a moan. She was suddenly everywhere at once, the phantom sensation fluid and constant. He tilted his head, chasing it, but it wasn’t something he could reach. He had no control over how she made him feel, and it was intoxicating.

“You like that, don’t you.” Her voice was low and gravelly, and it gave everything she said the finality of fact. She slid off the desk with a rustle and titled his chin up. “I can do more. Push it further.”

“Y-Yes. _Please_.” She snaked her hands into his hair.

“And you even ask so nicely.” 

Martin kept his eyes trapped shut as Sasha’s presence traced impossible lines in a part of himself he didn’t know how to define. _Sasha_. Laughed like candy, held him like heaven. Melted his mind into putty. 

Her feather touches; her sun-red affection. Chocolate-dipped, phoenix-risen, endless unfurling of self. A maze traversed by two, golden honey in the center.

Martin pressed his face against her chest, felt the ricochet of her heartbeat. 

“What a beautiful way of thinking.” Martin didn’t need to open his eyes to know her lips were parted, her tongue tracing the edge. “Is that what you see in life?”

“In you,” Martin said, lifting her back onto the desk. “That’s what I’ve had to ignore all this time, every time you talked.” Her glasses were askew now, her mouth open and surprised. 

“May I?” He said, not bothering to elaborate further. _Yes,_ he felt in response, the emphasis lighting up every nerve. 

He leaned in to kiss her. When he trailed his fingers under her skirt, she asked for more, wordlessly and with too many words all at once. Fragments of thought flickered through his mind—need and curiosity, fondness and a sharp possessiveness that made him cradle the back of her head in his hand. He teased the ticklish spot behind her knee and felt her smile against his lips and against his thoughts, shocks of joy pulsing through the meeting of their consciousness.

Martin broke the kiss and leaned his forehead against hers. He wanted to hear her breathe, the hitches she made as his fingers trailed ever higher, so light he made her squirm.

Sasha pressed her face into his shoulder and laced her hands around his neck. 

“I can feel what you feel,” he breathed into her hair. “How it’s not enough, what I’m giving you.”

She pushed her hips up, and Martin reflexively pressed closer, sliding one hand down her side to brace her. 

“I’ve got you,” he murmured. “You’re safe with me, always.”

Sasha dug one hand into his hair and tugged hard, both of them tilting their heads back at the mix of pain and pleasure.

Martin pressed two fingers against the wet spot between her legs and felt her bite her tongue.

“Still good?”

“If you stop, I might have to fire y—” She cut off the empty threat with a moan as Martin pressed his fingers against her, rubbing circles almost intangibly, then with a teasing insistence she met with a bite to his neck. Sasha burrowed against his shoulder, clinging to his hair as if it was the only thing keeping her fastened to the world. 

“Funny. You still think you’re the one in charge.” But even as Sasha clung to him, her mind was sharp and persistent, pushing further and further until she reached what Martin could only call the center of himself, the place his love was stored, his longing. She pressed against it, and it was Sasha this time who stopped him from collapsing, whispering an encouragement he was too far gone to understand. 

His fingers twitched involuntarily and both of them whimpered.

“Come on, Martin.” Sasha rolled her hips in a smooth, steady motion. “Don’t tease me.”

Martin pulled back. He met her gaze as he pulled the slick fabric down her legs and over her ankles, basking in the hunger in her eyes.

“You want me to look at you, don’t you?” She pressed herself against his fingers and shuddered, her eyes fluttering shut for a moment before meeting his again. 

“I am your Archivist, after all.”

Yours, yours, _yours_. The word echoed, and he realized dimly around the waves of her impatience that she was saying it to him, burning the word inside his mind over and over. Yours, make me yours already.

Martin pushed two fingers inside her and felt a shock go through him. She couldn’t keep her eyes open, but she tried, looking at him with such intensity that he was almost forced to look away, but of course he wouldn’t. He would watch her, one hand firm on her back, the other filling her with slow, strong strokes that she met with a fluid motion of her hips. He would watch the way her hands held fast to the desk, how low the flush went past her collarbones. How she gasped and cursed and whimpered, how little it took of this impossible closeness to make her come.

“Is that good? That what you asked for?” She nodded, panting too hard for words.

He would watch her and record every detail, slotting this memory into his mind like a stamp into wax. And Sasha, her eyes half-lidded, her mouth open and warm, watched him watch her and felt complete for the first time in her life. 

Martin couldn’t tell where his body ended and hers began. Where their minds separated, for that matter. Maybe this is what they were meant to be, and everything else was just a prelude. Their thoughts indistinguishable from each other, their feeling mixed in the same unending pool.

“Martin,” she gasped. “I need—I _need_ —”

“I know,” he said simply. He rubbed his thumb in circles over her clit, stroking in and out of her faster now. “I know you, Sasha. I know what you need, and how to give it to you. I know how to make you happy, and I—I—” Sasha’s amusement flashed through their minds as he stumbled over his words. He could feel the air thrumming now, the sheer power of her consciousness making the whole room shake. He pressed his palm flat on the desk as the last barrier between the two of them dissolved. He felt his own fingers—but were they his?—felt the shudder of her thighs, felt—oh, what did it matter now? He _felt_. They were something new and undefined and blissful, and it was all because Sasha loved him, too.

Sasha pushed a hand against his chest and looked straight into him. _Ready?_

Martin thrust his fingers into her hard, and a wave of white-hot pleasure doused them both. 

Martin watched her fall into it, her head titled back, her glasses somehow still on her face, her mouth frozen into an O that gave way to a smile. She caressed his neck as the warmth receded, her hips rocking gently against his fingers, until they simply held each other, listening to the other’s breathing, thinking the same messy thoughts.

Sasha hummed and cupped his face. She traced his lips with her thumb, and he sighed. The relief of being loved back. It was almost too much for him to bear.

Slowly, Sasha untwined her consciousness from his, brushing against his mind one last time before she was gone. Martin felt alone, just for a second, until he was fully himself again, the boundaries of self defined by their comfortable lines. 

The taste of blackberry jam lingered on his tongue. 

“Come home with me?”

“What?”

“Come _home_ with me,” she said, her voice catching sweetly on the word. “I want you near me, I—I want—” 

“Me too,” Martin whispered into the crook of her neck. 

“I mean, only if I can ever walk again. You might have to help me—oh!” Martin lifted her off the desk and settled her beside him, one arm wrapped around her waist. “Totally unnecessary. I’m not helpless.”

“No,” he said fondly, pressing a kiss into her hair. “You’re anything but.”

* * *

“It just feels a little silly, that’s all. Asking for you to touch me more after—”

“Right, I think I’ve heard that rule before. You have sex once, and then you’ve got to be satisfied for the rest of your life.” She swatted him on the arm. “Just tell me how to cuddle you.” 

“Fiiiiine.” Martin maneuvered an arm around her waist and settled his head on her chest. “Let me stay like this.” 

Sasha set her book on the nightstand and switched off the lamp. She stroked his forehead until his breathing turned even, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dark.

“I want you to always…” she said, pulling the covers around them. “Well. I’ll tell you some other time.”

“What?” Martin asked, already drifting off to sleep. “Said something?”

“Tell you tomorrow,” she said, squinting into the dark. Lost, scared souls called to the Eye from outside the window, but she shut out each pinch of hunger and turned instead to the man resting on her chest. 

It came with its gifts, being Archivist. She knew, true as anything could ever be, that she would fight to keep him safe, and she wanted the Eye to know it, too. She would feed it, yes. She would harvest what she needed from a horrified world and offer the sweetest fruits of her labor. But she would also make a home, somehow. Even just a room, a door leading to someplace the two of them could be alone. 

She kept watch as Martin slept.

She did not blink once.

**Author's Note:**

> *tugs at collar* so how about archivist!sasha..........


End file.
